“He sold doses of heroin twice a week, for three months, to a Perugian drug addict, Nicola M. ,” reveals Corriere Dell Umbria, from the hilltop town where British student Meredtih Kercher was stabbed to death on Nov. 7, 2007. “According to the investigation carried out by the carabinieri with manned surveillance, tailing and photos, he sold drugs for 30 Euro a dose.”

Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini built a murder conviction against Knox and her Italian ex-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito greatly helped by “Toto’s” testimony. Mignini called the tramp’s court debut: “One of the key points (in the trial) and the most important testimony. Credible, absolutely credible, trustworthy … without a doubt.”

Homeless Curatolo, who will be tried in Perugia for heroin dealing, is a semi-pro witness who’s managed to testify in three murder trials in tiny Perugia, where murders seldom occur. He’s accused of peddling heroin from his park bench in Piazza Grimana. Home to a shrouded basketball court, that drug dealer hangout is across from the University for Foreigners and minutes from the “house of horrors” where Kercher was slaughtered. Knox and Sollecito have been convicted of that crime. Curatolo’s rambling, bizarre testimony was so key to prosecutor Giuliano Mignini that the magistrate moved the time of death during closing arguments to accomodate the tramp’s contortions.

A drug dealing rap hurts Curatolo’s courtroom credibility, the Italian press pointed out today (translations at end of blog). Also, says the Italian news magazine Oggi: “It is legitimate to have some doubts about this hobo, always present when the police need him.”

As described in my book, MURDER IN ITALY, the hobo with the red face was wheeled into court in a office chair. He swore on a stack of bibles that Amanda and Raffaele hung out on the chilly basketball court on the night of the murder for three hours, casing out the “house of horrors” while Curatolo observed them from his bench. While he smoked cigarettes and read a newspaper in the dark, they talked excitedly with each other, he claimed. Even Mignini, who invented a marijuana, Manga comic book, satanic ritual theory for the crime, couldn’t dream up a logical reason why lovers who’d dated only six days would hang around a dreary piazza on a cold Umbrian night when they could be watching movies together in a nice cozy apartment.

Giuliano Mignini “trial of the century” 2009: He relied on a vagrant, now facing trial for pushing heroin, to nail Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito for a murder they say they didn’t commit. Photo: Candace Dempsey

Nor did Mignini explain why Curatolo waited several months to share these damning memories about a Perugia night no local could forget. But jurors and judges believed Amanda and Raffaele had lied when they claimed they stayed all night in Sollecito’s flat. Deprived of alibis, they were convicted, as was Rudy Guede, their alleged co-conspirator. A drifter, burglar, and virtual stranger, he chose a fast-track trial and has used up his appeals. Raffaele and Amanda still have a chance and will return to the appeals court Jan. 22.

Giuliano Mignini in court. Photo: Perugia Shock.

Curatolo’s unmasking couldn’t come at a worse time for the prosecution. First, the appeals court judge announced that he knew only one thing for sure: Meredith Kercher was murdered. Then he granted review of the “unassailable” DNA evidence against Knox and Sollecito.

Finally, the judge will allow a fleet of disco owners to testify that Curatalo got his nights mixed up. Curatolo testified that he’d seen disco buses running on the night of the murder, but those vehicles didn’t run on Nov. 1, only on Halloween. Indeed, in his first witness statement he also mentioned seeing witches and masked students. After skillful coaching, he scrapped those pesky details at trial.

That means that no credible witness saw Amanda or Raffaele leave his flat on Nov. 1, nor is there any proof that they lied about their wherabouts.

Meanwhile, stomach content analysis, cell phone records, logic and common sense indicate that Meredith Kercher was stabbed to death not long after she arrived home at 9 p.m. (a time period for which Amanda and Raffaele have an alibi) and not at 11:45, as the prosecution must now maintain. Mignini goofed when he chose to rely on a homeless man who, the cops say, was caught on camera dealing heroin.

All of which makes me wonder: Can a rational person still refuse to see reasonable doubt in the Knox case? We know the “bloody footprints” used to nail the lovers to the crime actually tested negative for blood. We know Raffaele didn’t leave the bloody shoe print by the bed (No, that was Rudy Guede, who left “grave” evidence everywhere, to quote the Supreme Court of Italy.). We know Amanda left no trace in the murder room, that she never called or emailed Rudy, nor expressed a negative thought about the victim. The list of false, debunked evidence goes on and on.

Isn’t it time to drop the curtain on this tragic sideshow and send Raffaele Sollecito and Amanda Knox home?

The Italian press said the following about the Antonio Curatolo scandal this week (translated into English). Also Oggi nails Rudy Guede as Meredith’s Kercher’s stabber.

The hobo Antonio Toto Curatolo, the key witness into the inquiry on the murder of Meredith Kercher, the man who places Amanda and Raffaele Sollecito on the scene with his testimony, has ended up in court for dealing drugs. Yesterday morning the hearing on the charge (held before judge Daniele Cenci, prosecutor Silvia Nardi, lawyer Marri) was remanded to next November.

The investigation, coordinated by prosecutor Tullio Cicoria, has accused the hobo of suspicion of continued dealing of narcotic substances.

Actually in the three months, in the spring/summer of 2003, Curatolo (born in the province of Avellino in June 1956) sold doses of heroin twice a week, for three months, to a Perugian drug addict, Nicola M. According to the investigation carried out by the carabinieri with manned surveillance, tailing and photos, he sold drugs for 30 Euro a dose.

Toto Curatolo (who had a role as a witness as well in two other trials for terrible crimes, among which are the murder of poor Mrs. Scota, landlady, killed in Via delle Cantine, and the murder of the very young North African Najla Dridi, killed in the swimming pool of Via Pompeo Pellini) at that time in reconstruction of the investigation of the Kercher murder is one of the witnesses “of delayed action” who, that is, have made their statements at a distance of months).

He claims to have seen Amanda and Raffaele on the night of November 1st, in Piazza Grimana, where he found himself seated on his bench intent on reading a magazine. And yet, in his memories of the facts of that night, there is a coming and going of young people and of the shuttle buses under the Etruscan Arch that takes suburban Perugians to most of the discotheques.

Now Raffaele’s lawyers (Luca Maori and Giulia Bongiorno), with defense inquiries, have found a good seven witnesses (owners of discotheques, directors of the SIAE, owners of the shuttle bus), who affirm that on that night the discotheques were closed.

The Appeals Court of Assizes (President Giovanni Borsini, along with Massimo Zanetti) has re-opened the case, as much for the testing of the DNA on the knife and on the victim’s bra clasp, as for hearing these seven witnesses. If these people confirm the statements made by the defense, the credibility of the hobo could collapse. And also the charge of drug dealing, even though ongoing, would not support his credibility. That is what happened to another witness, the Albanese Kokomani, who had recounted that he also saw Amanda, Raffaele, and Rudy Guede all together in Via della Pergola.
____Letter to Editor: Giangavino Sulas in Oggiputs the murder weapon squarely in the hands of Rudy Guede and casts doubt on Curatolo’s “nailing” of Amanda and Raffaele.

Reader:
I ask a clarification, not having followed the Kercher case, or superficially. In the article it says Mr. Antonio Curatolo claimed to have seen Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito on the night of the crime (in the article it says Nov. 1st, 2007). But wasn’t it the night of Halloween? If it’s October 31st; clearly the day after was a holiday and the discos were closed.
Thank you,
Annarita Torti

Giangavino Sulas responds:
Dear Madam,
Meredith Kercher was killed the night of November 1st, between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. The evening before, October 31st, the night of Halloween, Meredith had celebrated with her friends in a couple of Perugian bars, returning in the wee hours. Consequently around towards 8:30 p.m. on Nov. 1, she decided to go home, after eating pizza and a little cake with her friends, because she was tired from the party on the preceding evening.

Rudy Guede had first maintained that the girl had made a date with him for 8:30 p.m. just outside the house. In reality, then, he admitted to have lied and then claimed to have met her by chance. That was also a lie, that one. Guede entered Meredith’s house to steal and was surprised by the unexpected return of the young woman. This probably was the true cause of the tragedy and of the crime.

This much is known: Guede, not at all upset after the murder, spent the night serenely at a discotheque and a day later left Perugia to take refuge in Germany, where, when he was arrested, he was discovered with five cuts on his right hand. The hand that had grasped the knife by which Meredith had been killed.

Curatolo after some months remembered that he saw Amanda and Raffaele the evening of November 1st in Piazza Grimana and connected his memory to the presence of the buses, parked in front of the university, waiting to take the young people in the various discotheques. But the night after Halloween, the discotheques were closed and the buses didn’t provide that service. So Curatolo at minimum mistook the evening.

His testimony was considered fundamental because it showed that Amanda and Raffaele had lied when they said that the night of November 1 they had spent at his place watching a film. Curatolo is a strange personage; in a few years he’s been the decisive witness to resolve two other crimes in Perugia. Would he like to resolve a third?

It is legitimate to have some doubts about this hobo, always present when the police need him.
______
My Amanda Knox case book MURDER IN ITALY (Penguin/Berkley Books) is a Library Journal Bestseller and won Editor’s Choice and Reader’s Best True Crime Book 2010 awards. Called “a real-life murder mystery as terrifying and compelling as fiction,” it unfolds like a movie, from Meredith Kercher’s brutal stabbing to Amanda Knox’s conviction, complete with diary excerpts, wiretaps, court scenes and interviews with key players for the defense and prosecution. You can buy MURDER IN ITALY online at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Borders, and Indiebound. It’s also in bookstores everywhere and available as an ebook.